The final day was talking about marketing, festivals and feedback. We picked marketing materials we liked from the hundreds we managed to collate as a group and individually came up with our own concept.
In the afternoon we were given time to reflect on the week for 20mins in advance of an open feedback session.
These are mine in short:
I enjoy finding out about new people and care about what they think of me, but also the importance of a good welcome.
It was nice to think about me, my artistic vision aside from being a freelancer. It was challenging but exciting to fire up my mind in this way – creating work with people with different styles but hopefully all with something valuable to share.
Olivia (actually all the speakers) was insightful about the relationships you have to make, the resilience you need to show and risks you are willing to take.
Maybe I can create work in many ways – project/programming side and making.
I’m considering whether people would want to see my work in both of these areas – although I’m not sure I think it would be nice to try it out.
I have come away with skills and knowledge to apply to my thinking in all aspects of my professional life. A definite success for me.
My three next steps from this are:
1. Think about a separate brand for my artistic work (1-2mths from now).
2. Spend time investigating my idea to see if it is rubbish or not. (2mths from now)
3. Talk to people – find out whether the relevant people are interested in my ideas following step 2. (5mths from now).
This was another long and exciting day. The first session was not so exciting but a completely integral part of a successful creative process – budget – but this time income.
We were given a comprehensive guide to venue relationships, in terms of venue fees and box office splits. Other areas to gain income such as Trusts & Foundations and discovered how the articulation of your vision to fit with other potential funders motivations is imperative.
We went through commissioning and production models and this was insightful to see it from the opposite side to my experience so far. We talked about the importance of visibility – being seen at places, venues, performances etc and being to develop relationships with the people you meet. Get on more mailing lists, Caroline Horton mentioned something called the “Audience Club” which is a note to self to investigate.
Before lunch we had a visit from Alison Gagen, Relationship Manager for Theatre in the WM, she gave concise and clear information around the changes in the Arts Council England and articulated the impact this might have on emerging theatre professionals at this stage. It was reassuring to find out that development was a priority for her personally and as a representative of Arts Council.
The afternoon was spent combing the ACE guidance notes and application form [to which was useful because now I’ve realised I’m running very tight on sending my acceptance letter back!].
Following hours upon hours spent on looking at budgets, processes and funding we got an hour or so to be creative with each other. We went out to the great outdoors that we have been surrounded by for the whole time to create a piece based on what collectively we thought theatre should be but in pairs come up with a piece of theatre or performance that was inspired by or titled ‘The Optimists’.
I worked with Rob from New Macho, and we came up with an idea that included taking over beautiful forgotten spaces, and transformed worry into the feeling of now, living, enjoying and letting go. An installation and promenade piece of performance that would be magical, colourful and would turn into a party with lots of dancing. Each of the pairs came up with some great and very doable projects. To which it would be great to see some come to fruition.
Today was all about your artistic processes, the people you need to make it, and the money involved even up to the R&D stage – to which my idea I talked about yesterday would go to as a first stage.
It has been an insightful experience to understand the process of making a piece of theatre or performance before coming to you as a programmer with a packaged and ready to go piece of work you can easily show as part of a receiving house or re-contextualise for a new space. This has also given insight into the whole commissioning processes for theatre and contemporary performance – and from whatever side of the fence I sit on in terms of my own direction this proves extremely usual information.
The afternoon was stuffed with mind-boggling budgets. For me, this was challenging when it came to visualising my idea for the piece, how it would begin to be developed, how and who would perform it, and who else should/would be involved.
An observation I made in this session was the preparedness of young makers to work for free or be first to take a cut in terms of cost in the budget. Something I personally think happens too often in the sector as a whole. I’m not sure if there is a remedy to it either.
In the evening Neil Darlison from Warwick Arts Centre came along and gave us a remarkable insight into how programmers work and the motivations for programmers to work with new companies and artists. A clear message and advice from the evening was that as a new maker it is imperative to show work in festivals whilst Programmers and other commissioners are around, away from home and looking (and have allocated time) to see new work. Another interesting insight was to the fact that competition between venues existed and it was important to get some kind of commitment or promising discussions from more than one space.
So, following on from the last post in the evenings of the performances we will be meeting guest speakers who are relevant to the course – theatre makers, funders, programmers, and venues.
First up was Olivia Winteringham from Kindle Theatre. Kindle are a theatre company who are based in Birmingham and make theatre that takes place in unusual spaces. She articulately and sincerely described some horror stories from their five year history and also described the nature of the work: devised and interactive.
She talked about the organic formulation of the roles and dynamic within the group, both artistically and administratively.
She summarised her presentation by saying the most important elements for the company getting to this point today are based on communication, relationships and making work.
For the challenge of audience and site-specific work and the solutions for them so far alongside traditional marketing techniques have been to be visual in other ways and cited the installation of commissioned photographs in the Created in Birmingham Shop.
Some scrawled notes in my notebook which I think summarise the last points are step out, play on your strengths, and understand where you are in your process. All of which fit succinctly with the early discoveries and tasks we were set. An obviously passionate lady and company who, from my impressions, have ambition and enthusiasm to make interesting theatre in the region – thank you Olivia.
[The blogs for the Optimists were written on the evening of each day and reflect my thoughts at that time.]
In late 2009 I applied to become an Optimist. The Optimists is a development scheme for new theatre-makers in the West Midlands produced by Paul & Ed from China Plate. Fortunately I was awarded a place alongside nine other emerging theatre makers from the region.
Unsure of my fit, I am hoping that this whole experience will firstly; connect my practice closer to the processes of artists and companies I work with in the future. Secondly, to interrogate my artistic vision, tastes and to reach some sort of conclusion of where I will place myself in the future – am I a creative producer or would I like to be a maker in some form? Or is it plausible to do both?
It is apparent from the start that my interest in theatre or performance is slightly more of a niche of the others in the room – although this in itself is a really interesting realisation and acknowledgement personally. I also think this is an exciting opportunity to talk to, influence and open up the processes for all involved.
The morning of the first full day of work (10am – 10pm), we worked on vision statements for our companies (I was allowed to imagine I had one) and begin to blurb about a piece of work in development or as an idea. My company was named The Undecided for this, and my piece was an idea that has lived in my head for a matter of months ‘Explorations of the Working Class’ (Working Title). They both will be worked on for this week in the Shropshire wilderness but I thought it would be useful and interesting to share this openly on here:
Vision Statement:
The Undecided is exactly that! We are personal, relevant and collaborative. Covertly political, striving to make things beautiful. We are curious, suspicious and explorative about place, space and time. We are not trying to find the answers so remain completely undecided.
[The purpose of this is really for us to use as a guide for the future practice.]
For the idea we worked it into 100 words, 40 words and then 10 or under words:
40 words:
Do you have a neighbour with a 100 stories?
This performance is inspired by real people, lives and personalities. It investigates the intimacy you can feel with strangers. Filled with opinions, anecdotes and gossip!
Later that afternoon we all created three minute trailers of work we had made, seen or been in and discovered more about our fellow Optimists through this.
We were asked about what we discovered about each other – I got to work with Toyin and Lucy. I found this hugely challenging having not performed under someone else’s direction for years but also found this quite liberating. We worked collaboratively on each of the short pieces and I got to explore straighter theatre techniques from the inside. (Hopefully I had something valuable to bring to the table.)
It’s a first full day of working with each and already I have a long list of others companies who are found to be inspiring by my counterparts to research and investigate.